SWKS

Last month, the annualized rate of inflation hit 8.6%, the highest in more than 40 years. Last week, in response, the Federal Reserve bumped up its benchmark interest rate by 75 basis points, the largest such hike since 1994. The combination of high inflation and aggressive tightening action by the central bank sent an already jittery stock market to its worst single week since the onset of the COVID crisis, and has economists talking gloomily about a repeat of the late 1970s and early 1980s, wh

Each of the three major Wall Street indexes fell for the third week in a row amid heightened volatility, while the S&P 500 index suffered on Friday its biggest weekly percentage drop since March 2020 following the Federal Reserve's largest rate increase in nearly three decades. Markets have priced in aggressive rate hikes by the U.S. central bank in July and September to battle surging inflation, with some investors growing wary about whether the Fed can engineer a soft landing for the economy and avoid a recession. All eyes are now on Fed Chair Jerome Powell's testimony to the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday for clues on future interest rate hikes.